Guilt
by AccentFetish
Summary: Wrote this last year as one large story... Chapter cuts might be kind of awkward because of that. Oh yeah, and there's a bit of slash. Fourth chapter is extremely short... Sorry!
1. Guilt

House glanced over the unconscious patient before him. He was used to car crash victims. Most of them didn't survive when things were this bad, despite everything television liked to tell you. He was used to the heart monitor beeping at a steady rate. The respiratory machine breathing for the man. The bandages covering his body. What he couldn't get used to, was the fact that it wasn't just another random person. It was one of his employee's that was so injured.

"You're fired." He told the patient before leaving the room. He'd learned a long time ago you had to leave others before they could leave you. It's not like the hurt man would be able to keep working for him anyways. He was brain damaged. They couldn't be sure how badly until he awoke but they knew enough to say that continuing life as a doctor would be impossible.

The diagnostician made his way back to his office. He just wanted to go take a nap or something. He was exhausted from the long two days of no sleep. He had just lain in bed for hours, unable to think of anything but sending the man to search some patient's house. He wasn't guilty though. He knew there was no way he could have seen _that_ happening. Instead it was just like he was stuck on replay and couldn't find the remote to fix it.

The conference room before his office way empty. He's sent the rest of his workers home early. They were just as tired as he was. The girlfriend and the rival, he mused to himself. They were both feeling the guilt, not him. She could have loved him more and he could have tried to like him. But House wasn't feeling that. Not one bit. He just hoped people would believe him. He was too tired for someone to attempt a heart-to-heart. Too tired to think of anything witty to say to get out of it.

His office welcomed him back coldly. It was dark; the blinds were covering all the windows. This was where he hired the man. This was where he'd made fun of him. This was where he told him to search their now dead patient's home. The room wanted him to feel guilty. It whispered memories of when he'd hugged him, laughed at his more lame jokes, made a fool out of himself on an almost regular basis. He had to leave; the room was out to get him.

He grabbed his keys and made his way out to the parking lot. He could feel the people who knew giving him odd looks, of what emotion he was too spent to even attempt to recognize. No one spoke to him. In fact they all stopped talking to one another as he passed. The silence was infuriating. They all wanted him to be guilty too. He wanted to yell at them and tell them it wasn't his fault. It wasn't. The blame belonged to the idiot who had cut him off causing his car to slide off the icy road. Why didn't they go find that guy and look at him? Why didn't they go find him?

His motorcycle was a dangerous vehicle with New Jersey's winter at it's peak but he knew that he would be okay. The roads weren't going to take them both in the same week. The universe was more creative then that. It was almost a proven fact. So he sped down the streets as reckless a driver as always. If they thought that this would change him, they were wrong. He would be the same person as he'd always been. Only the guilty change and he'd made it perfectly clear he didn't have that emotion. Not for the man with the bandages all over his bodies in the hospital or anyone else. It just wasn't his fault.

His apartment, a place his employee had never known, seemed to be the only place that wasn't throwing accusations at him. Instead it gave him the same indifference it always had. He began to wonder if his home had known the man, would it turn on him too? Would the air turn cold and bed loose its cushion? Would the floor freeze his feet even through his shoes? But that didn't matter. He closed his eyes and let dreams of a better time and place he never knew take him over.


	2. Greenblue

"I'm sorry." They all told him the next day. They were speaking to him now. Words of consolation, as if they expected him to care. He didn't care. This was just something that had happened. Who they really should be apologizing to was the injured man. He'd woken up, or at least that's what they told him. He was beyond fixing. None of their machines, surgical know-how, or medicine could return him to the man he had once been.

In the injured man's mind, he was eight years old. He would stay that age for the rest of his life. The ultimate Peter Pan. Only in this case, there was no Wendy to come and try to convince him that growing up wasn't all that bad.

He didn't go see him. There would be nothing to say even if he did go. Saying his was sorry wouldn't work because he wasn't and you shouldn't lie to children. He could tell him that it wasn't his fault but he didn't believe he had to prove that to anyone.

They told him he should go visit the patient but he choose mountains of paper work instead. But soon he realized that the papers were white. His bandages were white. He abandoned the task saying it was pointless. He went off to the clinic.

He thought the clinic would be safe. Random people who just came and left, none of them knowing a thing. But there was a little boy who spoke no words. He starred with green-blue eyes and let pretty blonde hair flop into his face. The clinic had decided to get its revenge for him never liking it. He just picked up and left. Someone else would be able to treat the little boy. It was stupid of him to have gone there anyways. The hospital all together was the wrong place for him to be. He needed fresh air.

No one was at the park for obvious reasons of the killing cold. He kept eyes closed so he wouldn't have to see the pureness of the very snow he laid in. So not to see the grey sky that stretched out before him, never ending. Someone who felt guilt would have kept their eyes open. They would want to see everything, they would want to visit the man now boy. So there he stayed, too stubborn to get up and open his eyes.

"Are you alive, sir?" A voice asked him lined with worry and caution. He didn't answer. A guilty person would have replied. He kept his mouth shut. "Doctor! I think I found a dead man!" The snow crunched beneath the feet of both the person who had spoken and the one who had been called. Warm fingers searched for his pulse.

"House!" So this doctor knew him. He didn't want to talk or get yelled at so he just told whoever it was to go away; he was busy not feeling guilty. The person was persistent however and forced him to sit up and look at her. It was the girlfriend, worrying as always. "Are you okay? What are you doing on the ground?" But something caught his attention which caused him to pay her no mind.

There was a man wearing scrubs and bandages on his temples standing a bit farther back. He had large green-blue eyes and floppy blonde hair. "What's he doing out of the hospital? He should be in the ICU." He was angry. She'd taken him outside only days after a devastating injury. He had only regained consciousness that morning! Did she really think it would be okay? Of course she did. She did it because she felt guilty about his condition. She hasn't been able to say no when he'd asked her, "Pease Miss? I've never seen snow before." She could only look away ashamed.

He told her that their relationship had ended as soon as his car had tumbled off the road. He told her that she had to leave. This wasn't like her husband. He wasn't dying. If she ever wanted to be happy ever again she could never see what was left of her boyfriend ever again. If she stayed out of the guilt, it would ruin her. He told her all of this and she could only stare back at a loss of words. She couldn't just abandon him in his time of need. But his time of need was the rest of his life. He told her to go one more time and she finally did, giving once last glance at the man who used to be.

The injured man just stood there, slightly afraid and even more confused. He'd liked that doctor; she was pretty and made him feel special. House didn't speak to him. Instead he just stood up and began to walk back to the hospital. The man followed knowing subconsciously that it was what he was supposed to do. He trusted him to lead him somewhere safe just like any child would an adult. It was further proof that he was broken beyond repair.

While the whole walk back he wanted to say something, he found that he couldn't make a noise. The man followed him so full of innocence and naivety. He didn't know that he was following the same person who had done this to him. He was the one who took away his past and future. He was reaching out and grabbing the hand of the man who had killed him in a sense. Rejecting the hand would have proven his guilt so he held on tight as he escorted him back to his room in silence.

He told the nurse's to keep him in bed. "Don't fall for the little kid act, that's how he gets all his women." For some reason they thought _this_ joke was going too far when it was no different from the ones he'd been making for years before. He had to keep joking. If he treated this any different, it would prove something that wasn't, is true. So he went back to his office with and ever so clean conscious only to see the rival there waiting for him.

He held an envelope up in the air, waving it in his face. "What did you say to her?" The girlfriend must have quit. Good for her. Not that he cared, but now she at least had a chance. Not that he cared.

He told the rival exactly what he had told the girlfriend and shouts soon filled the room. All sorts of things spewed from the mouth of the man who had hated the now boy. He said she needed support, not to leave. He just ranted and ranted. Should he feel guilty for this too? No, not at all. It was for her own good that she left and she wouldn't have done it if she hadn't found truth in his words. She'd probably been looking for a reason to leave anyways and not look like the bad guy. The man lying in that bed was only what she wanted on the outside. It was a fact they were all going to have to accept; he was just trying to make the process go by a little faster.

So he told the rival all that needed to be said. How he was trying to push his guilt on him and how he really wasn't upset that she was leaving. But then he stopped. The realization brought a smile of triumph to his face. He had not been a rival of intelligence or personality but rather in love. "You dog! You got the hots for her!" There was no response. There was no way he could properly do so. "If you think she needs comfort, do it on your own time."

So there he stood alone. He'd driven them all away so all that remained was the cold office that wanted him to feel… Feel something, feel an emotion he did not posses within his being. He could not give them in which he did not have. "Leave me alone." He irritated told the glass walls as made his escape.

He soon found himself in a memorable spot. The place where the man had had betrayed him. The place he had punched him. The same place where he had told him that he loved him but was going to try and win back the girlfriend. At the time he had disregarded the feelings completely. People didn't just fall in love with him. He felt a bit proud when the now boy had said he wasn't going after him. The entire hospital had memories, none of them more guilt worthy this. But he wasn't guilty. Only if he was…

Those green-blue's had been irritated when the confession had been made. He had bugged him into telling him telling him his true feelings, not expecting what he actually got. When he had slipped his innocent hand into his earlier that day, it had been like that same confession being made all over again but only much more bitter sweet. He couldn't have him even if he wanted him now. He would have to become like her and leave to survive. But to leave would be an admission of guilt so he refused. He had to stay and he had to see him, the man in the bandages who was now a boy. He had to keep him close.


	3. Trial

So he left the damned spot and went to the boss. He already knew that she would be sympathetic and tired and say no to whatever it was he would ask. So he cut right to the chase. "What are you going to do with him?" He had no known family and a 30 year old couldn't go to an orphanage. He also couldn't take care of himself like he once had. He thought he was 22 years younger then he really was. What did you do with people like him?

She tried to avoid the conversation. She asked how he was doing, how the rest of the team was doing. He didn't have time to break the news that they were gone. He repeated his question with much more force put into it. He wanted an answer, not some damn pity party. The injured man was waiting. He needed an answer. What was the rest of his life going to be like? Shut up in some hospital for the rest of his days? He needed to know what.

The boss explained about a psychiatric clinic. The only place they could really send him with no family around. They would treat him well and he would have everything an 8 year old needed. It was the best place in the state. He would live a happy life.

The diagnostician scoffed at the words. Happy? Who could be happy as a prisoner in their own mind with less then a .000001 of escaping? With people just taking care of him because it was their job. It wasn't right. He didn't know why but he was sure he deserved better. "I want to take care of him."

The boss started dumbfounded. She couldn't properly put together the thoughts for a response let alone the sentences. He told her he would become his guardian or whatever it was called when the man was 30. He would buy him toys; teach him how to ride a bike. Whatever it was that an 8 year old needed, he would provide. The patient would be his in the only way he ever could. The only way.

It took a year. He'd been told he was lucky; things like that normally took much longer. There'd actually been a trial. He'd expected paperwork yes, but a trial? Judge included? They'd thrown everything they could at him as to why he should not have the man now out of bandages. He was an ass, drug addict, and there would be no one home to take care of the man when he was at work.

No one could understand why he wanted to take care of the man so baldy. When asked in court he spewed out facts and statistics about how psychiatric clinics were really hell in disguise. He knew stories and was just as good at making them up on the spot. If only there had been a jury! They would have been putty in his hands. His performance had been flawless but a performance it was. No one saw that. There was no surprise when custody was granted to him.

They lived together in his apartment, a place that didn't freeze up by knowing the man but rather warm like it had never been known to before. It told comforting tales top them both. It was proud of him unlike the damned office. It was overjoyed to have a new occupant dwelling within. It would wake them both comfortably by the sun slowly spilling through the blinds. It made sure the water was warm when they showered and that there was always at least one appetizing food in the fridge.

House could almost not believe the difference one person could make on your life. But he could not sleep soundly despite all the good things that had been brought. "You go search her place." "You go search her place." "You go search her place." He'd never hated any other word sequence more. The guilt he didn't possess implanted the memory of the words in his head. They could follow him at times which made no sense. He'd be playing his game boy and suddenly have to stop. Making a phone call and have to hand up in mid-word. In the middle of a diagnosis and have to get up and leave. It was so frustrating all he wanted to do was scream.

Still, more problems pursued him daily. The man. Oh the man now boy! It was like a delicious piece of cake set before him while he was starving but was only allowed to admire from afar. He'd never really wanted anything until he couldn't have it. When the temptation became too much he would turn to his guitar, an object that had never mocked him. The piano, he only went to rarely. It was an instrument designed to love him completely and then turn away at the worst moments.

"I've… I've heard this before." And that's how it all began. Those simple words uttered from the man who once was gave hope that he still could be.


	4. Torture

The music was constant after that. If it wasn't him performing then it was the stereo, iPod, or cd. The apartment was never quiet. Every kind of music he could get his hands on was played. Some of it was even enjoyable, although a lot of it was not. No matter what though, he kept the music going.

"He has brain damage! You can't fix him!" The best friend argued. It was for his very own goods his didn't give his hopes up. He argued back that the MRI has lied to them. It was the rival, after all, who had done them. The man could just have a very strange case of amnesia or something. He could be alive in there. There could be a chance. "Falling in love with someone who can't love you back is the same as pushing the ones who do away." But that wasn't true. He did feel the same way back, just couldn't remember it.

The man now boy looked up at him with exhausted eyes. He didn't want to try and remember anymore. Only 1 in every 10 songs ever seemed the slightest bit familiar and he was sure it was because some of the songs accidentally were repeated over time. He didn't want to listen anymore. He crawled into House's bed and snuggles against him. It was just so much more comfortable with someone else right there besides him. In moments he was in a deep slumber, one he would not awake from easily. The doctor however knew from experience, he would not follow in suit.

When the patient was asleep, he could pretend that he was okay. He could say that he was sleeping and that was truly it. There was no damage to his mind, making him believe he was 8. Making him believe that there was really nothing between them besides the love a child feels for the adult that takes care of them. When the man was asleep, House even fought back blinking. It was the only chance he got; he wasn't going to waste it.

Another year passed by agonizingly slow. Torture, every time he smiled. Torture, every time he insisted on a hug. Every time he pouted when he didn't get one and the triumph when he earned one anyways. It was all torture torture torture. The music seemed to have lost its touch. He wanted to quit. He wanted to kick the man out of his home and never see him again. But of course he didn't. Only the guilty would react in such a way. Only someone who wanted to get the guilt off their conscious so badly would send him away after nothing else seemed to work. So he endured. Were those green-blues even worth it?

"What's going on?" They were.


	5. Remember

He just awoke as a 32 year old again. The one day the music had been forgotten. He refused to believe that the man was fine at first. After so long… It just seemed improbable. He gave him tests. Lots and lots of pointless tests to make sure he was really all there. And he was. Only slower. He took longer then a normal person to react at times, had a hard time focusing for long periods of time, and horrible short term memory loss. Sometimes he would stay in the shower for 3 hours because he kept forgetting if he'd already shampooed his hair. He was back though, fully capable of holding an adult conversation and understanding perfectly what they were conversing about. The man that was lived again.

Then that conversation came. The one House decided from the very beginning he was not going to enjoy. The man asked about the girlfriend. The woman he'd worked so hard to get her to like him back. The very woman he was bit by a strange child for. And what could the diagnostician say? Lie? Only the guilty could like about such things. He told the truth.

"She's gone. Probably married with a million little knee huggers running around. Who knows?" A look so shock appeared on the man's face although he tried to hide it after the first initial wave. He knew that look. He couldn't believe that she would just leave him. She'd always been the type to stay. The doctor decided it was best if they didn't talk about it anymore.

She _was_ married. One of his new employees that now checked his e-mail had told him. It wasn't to the rival however. No, it was some man from Canada. Apparently she had a thing for foreign men. She'd be devastated if she found out the man was back to normal and she had just left him. He wouldn't talk to her about him either.

"How'd I end up here with you?" Those two years of regained childhood were now lost to him. The man could not recall the juice boxes, watching soap operas until he could actually act along, or crawling into a certain bed every night. So this time he kept the truth hidden under the decorative rug in the living room.

He told him that the clinic he had been living it had caught on fire. They had told him keeping the man boy would be temporary. The boss gave him clinic hours off and not a day latter he had recovered. The patient believed the story and thanked him although obviously embarrassed at the thought. House would have to keep those video's the best friend had insisted he take of them all hidden. To lie in this matter meant he had no guilt. To be found out… He refused to be accused to the feeling he never had. Not then and certainly not now.

Each day he wondered, why was the man not remembering that he loved him? The confession had been made before the accident. The feelings had obviously come even before that. Why was he not acting? They were living in the same warm apartment. Sharing the same bathroom, couch, but why not the bed? If anything, this was worse then before. He could now have what he wanted. He just couldn't _have_ him. "You have a week to find yourself a new place. He didn't want to have to deal with him anymore. He had worked so hard but just couldn't make the last stretch. Maybe it really wasn't worth it? Maybe he was just like the girlfriend and liked broken people? It was explain his inability to see things through now that the patient was as normal as he was going to get.

The man just blinked. He should have known he would get kicked out sooner or latter. He was just surprised it had taken so long. He'd been wondering why he hadn't been kicked out the moment he realized he was 8 years old anymore. He packed his things, ignoring how much stuff there actually was and how scattered around the apartment it all was for the short say he was said to have had. Embarrassingly enough, most of the boxes were packed up with toys his ex-boss looked sad to part with.

The man found a place relatively quick; it was finding a job he was having doubts about. All hose years of medical school and now he was a risk to every patient's life. There was nothing else for him to do. The only good part was, every time he really begun to think about it and freak himself out, he simply just forgot. He couldn't talk about the problem with anyone. No one was around for him to talk to. No friends. No girlfriend. Hell, he no longer even had a rival co-worker who really didn't like him. House, for obvious reasons couldn't be spoken to about important matters for obvious reasons. He was basically screwed.


	6. All Along

"We're a teaching hospital. You are the longest lasting fellow he's ever had. You would be perfect to have your own class." He accepted the job gratefully. You didn't need a long attention span to be on the teaching side of school. He'd be fine as long as no one cared to remind him he was saying the same thing over and over again. He was still cute; someone would probably love to have that job. Things were starting to look up.

He didn't tell House about the job. They didn't talk much. Ever. As soon as he was given the deadline to move out, the older man avoided him at all costs. He said there was a big new case. The man tried not to care. If ever there was someone who understood the diagnostician, it wasn't him. The day he moved the last of his things out, the doctor hadn't even bothered to come home. He tried not to let it bother him as much but it felt weird to leave that apartment and have it feel so… So cold.

His new place could only be described by one word: empty. Sure, he could only remember less then a month of the past 2 years but that month had been filled with constants his new apartment lacked. Thumping of a cane. Music playing in every room. Cranky complaints coming from a certain man almost 24/7. All he got now was silence. He'd never been too big on quiet time. He never thought that he would miss waking up at 3 in the morning to House drunkenly singing along with catchy commercials.

That's the way life worked though. You get into a car accident, think you're 8 for 2 years and then get better all the sudden with no recollection of those years except for the gut feeling that you were missing out. Well that was the way his life worked out. His life. He just sat down on the couch and mindlessly starred at the wall where he would soon put a TV. He sat there all night, thinking the same thoughts over and over; never really seeming to get anywhere in his pretty little damaged head.

House was surprised to go to work a few days later and see the boy now man there. He didn't approach him, no. If he did then that meant he would have to talk to him and he wasn't in the mood. Instead, he stealthily followed him around the hospital, making sure he was he best damn cripple James Bond he could be, not noticed by his target at all.

He saw the best friend come up to his former living partner and give him a happy handshake. "Glad you're better." "Good to see you back." Him, he was spotted by. It was like the man had a special radar for him, always managing to find him not mater where he was or what disguise. (Magazine over face, cane in nearby potted plant.) "You're stalking him?" Of course it would look that way to most people. I was true. But he just made some remark about how hot young doctors always sulk around lecture halls nowadays. The other man could see right through the joke and badgered him all the way to his office.

"I'm happy he got a job. What do I care if he's here?" But the office chilled even more, if it was possible, at the words. The best friend and scornful room seemed to collaborate with each other as he began to spew out what he thought House's real feelings were. It always took being told exactly everything about yourself from someone else to get him to realize things. He wasn't happy for the man. After all, how could he leave someone before getting hurt when he wouldn't go away?

If anything, he was angry. Of course anger meant he'd never felt any guilt because the guilty are happy when the people they hurt regain their lives. He just wished that the man had stayed a boy. That way, at least he would be able to be there. Deep down he knew that it hadn't been enough and never would be. He was just so angry at everything.

The best friend left the cold office, not quite feeling like anything he said suck to Gregory House. The man met him in the cafeteria, not 5 minuets later as he contemplated everything. He looked a bit distressed, completely different then when he'd seen not too long ago. Politely, he asked what was wrong as he gathered the proper food on his tray. "Tell me it isn't true." The teacher demanded. Not harshly, a bit more confused with a little bit of mortification in there as well. He explained how he'd run into the boss and they'd began to talk. He told of how she'd said House fought for custody of him. Took care of him.

When the best friend confirmed the story, feeling as though he finally understood a bit better, the man gave him a distracted thanks and set off. He'd been lied to. He felt like an idiot, having been so completely under a wicked man's control for what he would now refer to as the worst years of his life. Now he was angry as well, imagining the sick pleasure the man had gotten out of parenting the child he had been a month before.

He barged into the cold office and began yelling. House, who wasn't in the mood either, joined him. They were both furious at the other, each feeling tremendously wronged. The former boy couldn't believe that someone he loved was actually that cruel. The older man was peeved because he'd had high hopes when the boy would turn back into a man and now those hopes were crushed. "Dammit! I didn't take you in because your state of mind amused me!" He yelled how most people would be grateful for not letting him rot in some clinic for the rest of their lives and not rubbing it in his face. Some people would be happy to have someone care for them as best as they damn well could.

But being yelled at was how he decided there was no way in hell he'd been taken in out of the good of the other man's heart. Here had to have been some ulterior motive. He paused and tried to think of what it could be. And idea came to him. Could the great House, despite all of his arguments, feel guilty over what had happened to him? It fit so perfectly that even the glass office seemed to scream as loud as it could, "GUILT! GUILT!"

Accusations were never taken well by the other party, who by now was the only angry one left. The former boy looked as if everything made sense now and his initial reaction to finding out where he had been as an 8 year old man had been wrong and out of line. He normally wasn't one to resort to yelling, his thoughts had just been playing too many tricks on him. He asked his denying ex-boss if here could even be any other reason to him taking him in.

"I love you."

"Same thing."

The office looked at them standing there within and dropped its usual frigidness. House wasn't guilty to have sent his employee out that night. As he'd said before, life was creative. It likes to make you dance before finally settling on its true intentions. And yes, he truly believed that was how it was all supposed to happen. He boasted to himself that he'd known all along what the outcome would be. Someone who knows, they can't possibly be guilty.


End file.
